


Human Weakness

by RednReady



Category: The Blacklist (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-30
Updated: 2017-07-30
Packaged: 2018-12-09 01:43:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11658990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RednReady/pseuds/RednReady
Summary: Imaginary drabbles





	Human Weakness

**Author's Note:**

> I have no idea where they're going with the Red/Katarina backstory. Nor did I think particularly deeply about whether these little drabbles fit with what we've learned. They're just some drabbles is all. Might be more, might not.

 

He'd fallen for her.

It all came back to that one, simple, unbelievably stupid thing. Somewhere along the line, he'd fallen for her.

Granted, it's what she was good at. What she was trained to do, make men fall head over heels and spill their souls. Given her natural beauty and wit, there wasn't much training required.

He'd stumbled upon her quite by accident. He suspected now that it was only accidental on his part, that she had been sent to spy on him, although she'd never confirmed that.

He'd been a senior at the academy, already recruited for much more, already working with higher ups in Naval Intelligence. There was a war on, after all.

She'd shown up at a dance. All batting eyelashes and gorgeous golden-blonde hair and southern accent. They'd danced one dance.

Two days later he'd taken his girlfriend to a musical in town. A row in front of him sat the blonde southern girl hanging on the arm of an army officer. Snippets of their conversation wafted back to him. 

Her accent was gone.

He headed her off by the bathroom during intermission and dragged her into a stairwell. 

 

* * *

  

He got married. His wife got pregnant. Not necessarily in that order.

For three years he and Katarina worked together. Dead drops, missions. She taught him until he spoke fluent Russian. It was mostly professional, but there were a few...indiscretions.

It had been two months since they'd put a stop to their extracurricular activities. He found her waiting by his car after he dropped his daughter off at daycare. Reckless, by her standards.

By this time the dye was gone and her natural red hair only made her pale features seem more so. "I'm pregnant."

Why would she be telling him? Unless...

He'd never seen her like this. Charming, laughing, dancing, murdering, yes. But never like this. Never afraid.

What is it about a new, tiny little life that makes people so afraid?

He drove her to the pier. They took out his small sailboat. Less chance of being overheard.

Was it his?

She shrugged. It was possible. She couldn't say for sure. Whether he was happy or angry at the uncertainty, he didn't know.

He thought of his daughter, a little over two years old. Of his wife with whom he'd recently reconciled. They were in counseling. Things were going well. He'd made up his mind to be everything that little girl thought he was.

If this child was also his... he might lose everything he had. Everything he'd fought to recover. And yet he couldn't walk away entirely.

 

* * *

 

Another month passed. She went back and forth, at times mildly hopeful, but mostly cursing her predicament. She told her handler. He was upset, but said that it might be a good thing. She would be out of commission for a short while, but a child would cement the bond she sought to fabricate with her cover husband.

She never told them it might not be his. He was cover in more ways than one.

Constantin was so excited. There were days she wanted to kill him. And then days she found herself warmed by his genuine care for her. It was so rare in her world.

Raymond fixed things on his side so that no one questioned the drying up information from their prized double agent. He checked in on her when he could.

Somehow he became the one person she could truly confide in.

And for the first time, she felt like a cheater.

 

* * *

 

Reddington found himself bonding with the idea of a person who might not even be his to bond with. The child of Russian and American spymasters, conceived during the Cold War.

Some days he came home from work to his normal suburban house. He played with his daughter and made love to his wife and prayed that the other child wasn't his.

But then some nights he dreamed of a blonde who could strip a sidearm in twenty seconds, remembered the surge of adrenaline that came during a dangerous mission, and thought what an amazing thing it would be if it was.

 

* * *

 

The baby was born in March in Moscow. Constantin named her Masha.

Raymond slipped into the hospital nursery after hours and found her.

It was a foolish thing. Best to wait until he knew for sure. But as he rocked her gently, his heart threatened to burst. He knew; she belonged to him.

Only she didn't. No one could know she was his.

It was six months before he saw either of them again.

 

* * *

 

He found himself getting angry any time she used her charms to get information. Any time she flirted, any time she touched. A red hot jealousy boiled up within him.

One night it boiled over.

Things had been bad at home with Carla.

She'd gotten pregnant. They'd gotten married. It seemed like the thing to do. He supposed he loved her. Yes, he loved her. But sometimes it felt like she was only in love with the idea of him.

The young naval officer destined for higher things. Parties spent mingling with the Washington elite, someday to be ushered in on the arm of an admiral. She hadn't counted on the hard road it would take to get there.

Counterintelligence. Much of it spent close to home, but there were missions. Missions that took longer than anyone had foreseen. Missions that were classified. Missions that sometimes left him scarred in mind and body. She couldn't understand the changes that were coming over him. He couldn't explain.

He found himself having longer talks with Katarina. A relationship that had for a long time been restricted to work and questions about Masha began to branch into the personal once again. Things neither of them could tell anyone else.

Fights with Carla. A rekindled and deepened emotional intimacy with an old flame...

He should have seen where it was going.

He'd been waiting for her outside the hotel. She'd gone up to her mark's room. Ray was inexplicably angry about that. She was down in twenty minutes. Her mark had passed out drunk, so she simply stole the files from his safe and left. Kat emerged triumphant from the side exit to meet a handler ready for a fight.

He drove her back to her car, parked in a field outside of town.

He kissed her. Angry. Desperate. Possessive.

She kissed him back even more desperately.

Lonely.

They were both so lonely.

 

* * *

 

They saw each other more often after that. It was foolish, but they were fools.

He loved his wife. He did. But it wasn't like this. It wasn't an all-consuming need to speak to her, to be with her. He didn't dream about her at night. He didn't daydream in the day.

He was obsessed with Katarina. Whether she loved him, he couldn't tell. She wouldn't say.

Carla was cheating on him too; he knew it. He pretended not to know it. It helped ease his guilty conscience. 

They wouldn't last. He saw that now. Once their daughter was older, they would separate. Divorce. Therapy wouldn't save them.

Maybe by then the war would be over. Maybe Kat would leave Constantin and they could both stop living a lie. They could all be together. Masha could meet her sister.

He would give up the Navy. They would be a normal family without a constant threat hanging over their heads.

But Katarina served more than one master. This made things infinitely more dangerous. And Ray was about to run into some troubles of his own. 

 


End file.
